Releasing Tension
by Neva
Summary: "She's back under control...and the professor's going to be working with her every day to make sure she stays that way." Co-written and set after Power Surge. Jean fans rejoice, Scott fans brace yourselves, and Xavier fans turn back before it's too late


A/N: This story was written months ago, a long-distance joint effort between me and my friend Sarah, who also helped me conceive of "Shaky Ground." It takes place directly after "Power Surge."

Disclaimer: Neva and Sarah do not claim to own the X-Men. Access to Lance and Roberto, respectively, is desired but not claimed.

The bag hangs from a tree in the courtyard. It's almost as big as I am, and filled with sand, my hands and feet strike it with satisfying _thwacks._ Sweat darkens my hair and the sides of the halter I'm wearing, and I don't know how long ago it was that Scott told me I've been out here for over an hour. "You've been through a lot, he told me. "You should rest." Is he actually concerned about me? Or does he just want me energized for the next battle, real or fake?

When my powers went out of control earlier in the week, when I was suspended in a whirlwind of chaos, his was the voice that called out to me. _Listen to my voice! Focus on me!_ I couldn't focus on anything. Not then, and not afterward, when Duncan sent me flowers and tried to Be There For Me.

Well, he wasn't there. Neither was the rest of the team, not really. I might as well have been alone, the center of the tornado, whirling in space. I wanted it to stop, but at the same time I didn't. It was like all of a sudden, nothing was beyond me. I could literally move mountains. I could see the truth in everyone's minds, things I'd rather not know. Things that I don't want to think about. Sessions at a punching bag are good for that.

_Thwack. Thwack._ "If I didn't know better," Scott says, I would say you had a grudge against someone." Smiles like it's the funniest, most ridiculous thing in the world, me having a grudge. "It's not me, is it?"

I don't hear him. Whose words are those? Whose smile is that? His or yours?

When I first got out here, I saw you watching me from the window. Are you surprised, too, that I have all this anger inside? I bet you didn't even know that your sweet, helpless little Marvel Girl was capable of getting angry.

I bet you've been thinking of me as that same little girl you began molding into the perfect little minion all those years ago. I'm not. I can think for myself, if you'll ever let me. You tried to keep me from growing up. I've grown up, and now that I have, I hate you. I hate you for not even trying to bring both Kitty and Lance to the team and I hate you for what you've done to their relationship. I hate you for blackmailing Evan. For manipulating Kurt. I hate you for the Brotherhood -- if it weren't for you, it wouldn't exist. We'd all be one team. No! Not a team--we'd be friends. So I hate you for the loss of friends I never had a chance to make. 

I don't completely blame you for how lonely I feel sometimes. There's a fine line between popularity and acceptance, a difference between people being in awe of me and still wanting to spend time with me after seeing me at me worst, my angriest, my saddest, my most scared. But seriously. How can I be a true friend to Taryn and Sandy, how can I always be honest with Duncan if I have to lie about who I am? If being one of the X-Men wasn't such a huge part of my life, it wouldn't be a problem, but you made me feel like this was all there was to me. Like the girl I was before I came here is dead, and the girl I am during school, a person I barely know, is a role I have to play so that lesser beings don't get suspicious. Here at the Institute, they only see Ms. Perfect, who always tries to be the best and prevent any conflict, either to her or among anyone else. Kitty and Rogue are good friends who can talk about anything... if they want to. I've seen Kurt and Scott bonding. Jamie and Rahne, the youngest of the new recruits, are spending more and more time together. I'm easy to get along with, so nobody here really dislikes me (except maybe Rogue), but is there anyone I can trust with the truth about who I really am, much less the truth about what you are?

No. No. They wouldn't listen. And they wouldn't have the good sense to keep quiet. Scott might, but he doesn't have any secrets from you, does he? I look at him now and I'm repulsed, not by what I see, not by that sweet loving face that splits into a smile whenever I look his way, but by what I know is lurking underneath it. That was when I caused him to drop off the balcony simply by waving my hand. I saw him, but I didn't _sense_ him.

I looked in his face and I saw you looking out at me, with that gloating smirk on your face. You were going to talk to me through him, and you thought I wouldn't see you in there. And maybe any other time you would've been right. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed, or would have allowed you to pull the wool over my eyes like you have so many other times. But this time I saw. And I hate you for that too.

I hear him speak to me and the words are yours. I see the way he moves sometimes, like someone who isn't used to walking. Is he still awake in there? Do you make him watch? Or do you tie him up and lock him in a closet, like you did to me? Just before I pitched him over the edge of the balcony, his thoughts came to me so clearly, his emotions, like he'd broken free of the chains the second he'd seen me. Fear. Anger. Despair, like he thinks there's no hope for him.

I don't know much about Scott's past. I do know that he was born in Alaska, that his dad was an Air Force pilot and both his parents died in a plane crash. I caught memories of a backyard where he played commandos with Alex. (Who can't know the truth, and I don't want to be the one to tell him.) That he lived in an orphanage, then in a foster home. He's never told me a single thing about what happened to him in either of those places, but I get the feeling that they weren't very pleasant. I told him that I would always be there to listen, but it doesn't matter. For him, life began when you found him a couple of years ago. What did you say to make him come here? What did you do to convince him that he was mankind's last hope? How did you change him from the kid he once was and probably misses desperately, into... this? Where did Scott end and Cyclops begin?

I know where it began for me. My parents introduced us, they said I should call you "Uncle", that they were very close to you and were sure I would be too. When my powers surfaced it was you I spent most of my time with, learning to control my abilities. When I began feeling other people's emotions and hearing their voices in my head it was you I turned to. You said you could help me, make them go away... you certainly kept your word. I couldn't 'hear' anything in my mind anymore. Except for you. 

And I was desperate. I had already felt what it was like to die, already lost sight of which feelings were mine and which belonged to other people, lost all hope of ever being a normal little girl with normal friends, all before I turned eleven. It was the three of us out on that sun porch, sometimes in the dining room when it was cold out: me (with my hair in a ponytail and those cute little butterfly earrings Sara gave me for Christmas), you, and my mom, standing discreetly off to the side. You told me you could block out my psychic powers until I could better use to learn them. And I was desperate. I refuse to believe that was my fault. So I agreed.

I felt all the alien feelings begin to leave my mind as you began building the wall in my mind that would keep them out. My little sister, Sara, came out while you were doing this, and the last emotion I felt from another human being was fear--of what you were doing to me. The last thought I caught was _No! Leave her alone you creep! What are you doing to her?_ You turned to her, still building the wall in my head and said "She is fine Sara. I am helping your sister Jean to get better. Please don't interrupt me, it might cause me to lose focus and let slip the protections I am building for her."

Protections. HAH. More like a prison formed of my own energy and will. You might at least have been honest about that, about how I've practically been your living and breathing psychic battery. Do you see me as anything more, now? It's hard for me to believe you never cared for me at all. You were a second father, my "Uncle Charlie", my protector who calmed my parents down when they worried about my future. HELL, of course you calmed them down!! It worked to your advantage if they were calm and organized. You got them, all of us, to trust you enough that they agreed to let me come and join you here at the Institute. Talk about big mistakes. I played right into your hands, and even Sara helped, though she'd hate to know that. She never trusted you, and was quite vocal about it. I had to prove to her as well as to my own doubting mind that you were worthy of my trust and idolization. I guess she gets to say "I told you so!" in that terribly annoying way she has when she's right next time I see her. If I ever do.

I remember leaving for the Institute. I was fourteen or fifteen, dressed in the black skirt and blue blouse Mom picked out for me. I hated that outfit, but everything else I owned would definitely not match the dress code she kept wondering if you had. She held me at arms length and looked at me for a long time. "We love you, Jeannie," she said. "Please don't forget that." Sara hugged me, too. All worries about her raiding my closet once I was gone (she'd started dressing in a style Daddy called "repressed punk" and warning her that she had better not go to school dressed like THAT, young lady) evaporated. She looked truly scared for me. "They treat you bad there," she said, "and I'll come kick their asses into the middle of next week."

"I'll be fine," I told her. Because that's what you told me. That I would be fine. I actually worried about how I would make her understand that this was what was best for me. 

It was the first time I had ever left home. Sara and I had gone to Girl Scout camp a few years ago, but that had just been for a week. There were butterflies hatching in my stomach. The lady driving the fancy car -- Ororo -- asked if I was nervous. I said uh-huh. "There's nothing to be scared of," she told me. "The professor has spoken very highly of you." As if, somehow, that made everything all right.

I met Scott practically first thing. He was waiting there in the front hall. I think he was a little bit in awe of me, but I could sense something wrong about him right off. It wasn't that he didn't react the way teen guys generally did to my looks, or the way he seemed so very confident. Well, maybe a little of each, but there was something else too. It was like seeing you, but he wasn't you. He was a teen, and teens, especially guys, aren't like you. They have a long way to go to learn what you know. Hell, I certainly had and still have a ways to 

go before I'm anywhere close to your level. I guess that's what tipped me off that something was strange about Scott---he talked like an adult, but still moved like a kid.

So I didn't sense anything _wrong_... not at first. How could I? When I found out about his past, and about his responsibilities as fearless leader, I was sympathetic but also, in a way, relieved. So that's why he acts so stiff all the time, I told myself. Of course there was no alternative, at least none that I could name.

You wanted me to play your game. You wanted me to wear the uniform, pick out a code name (Thank God "Marvel Girl" didn't last), train in the Danger Room, and be a good example for the others. So I did. You must have had to use up a lot of energy to keep my mind in check. And Scott, too, of course. I didn't know at first, obviously, and I'm sure he didn't either. But -- and here's the crazy part -- I think that's changed. 

The punching bag explodes. I didn't even see it coming. One minute I'm picturing your face in my mind and delivering one last, ferocious punch; the next, sand is spilling from all sides. It gets in my hair, in my eyes, some of it in my mouth when I shriek in surprise. I scream like the little girl that I was when my best friend left me forever, when her agonies were only the first that filled my head, before you first rolled into my life. Blinded, choked, I back away, straight into Scott's arms. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." I spit sand out.

He thumps me on the back a couple of times. "God, I've never seen you like that."

"I know," I gasp, finally getting the air back into my lungs.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I guess I just... lost control." Funny, the words we use here. That particular phrase can be applied to any time we act in any way that we're not supposed to, that isn't expected of us. So maybe we are losing control -- yours. 

His arms are around me before I can back away, and I know how grateful he is for an excuse to hold me, so I don't resist. He's probably wondering how this can freak me out so much after all I've been through. If only he knew. But I want to be here as much as he does.

I guess maybe I've used Duncan to trick myself into believing that I can be a normal girl with a normal life. I still want that, but when or if I finally have it, it'll be on my own terms, not his, yours or anyone else's. Besides, Duncan wants a pretty face, a star athlete, a perfect girl in every way. Scott knows me, all of me -- well, almost all -- and he loves me anyway. You didn't cause that. It just happened. So I'm glad to be here, and I do not let myself wonder who is controlling the hands that rhythmically stroke my back, the voice that whispers that everything's fine now. Despite myself, I lean my head against his chest and listen to the thud of his heart. It beats on its own without any outside help. And now I know that it beats for me.

But I can't tell him that yet, any more than I can find any way to tell him what's been done to him. I'll pray to a God who I think must have a sick sense of humor that he's fighting you. I'll learn as much as I can so that I can free him myself someday. And then we'll take you down. We'll take you down before you get it into your head to use another person's mind as your new favorite toy. And if we can't do that, we'll make sure that people see what you really are before they choose to follow you. That is my warning. That is my promise.


End file.
